Edible Play Dough

Updated September, 2022

I love doing science projects with my toddler. It is even better when I can mix science and art. Making science crafts for kids is a fun, enjoyable, and educational afternoon activity. One example of that is making edible play dough. Edible play dough is an easy science activity for toddlers all the way up to preschoolers.

Play dough is one of my favorite activities to do with young children (or older, let’s be honest, it never gets old!). It always has been. The best part about making it myself is that I can make it one time for the science perk, and then we can use it over and over again.

For the very young children, it’s important to make edible play dough. This is why the store bought stuff is all non-toxic. Children are going to put things in their mouths, there is no getting around it. So just make sure it won’t make them sick. Do note that just because it is safe to eat doesn’t mean it tastes good. We don’t want to encourage our children to eat it after all.

Supplies

Making anything in the kitchen is a fun science experiment. What happens when we mix different ingredients together? What do things taste like? How do we heat things up? Cool them off? So there are a lot of questions and explorations to be had in this process alone. The older your child, the more complex the questions can become.

Playing with play dough is great for developing fine motor skills. These skills set us up for success later in life for hand control. So cutting, penmanship, typing, all of those things we use our fingers for are worked on by playing with play dough.

The creativity of play dough is endless. It is open ended, so there is no right or wrong way to do anything. We could have a room full of twenty people and ask them all to make a dog and everyone’s dog is going to look different.

If you have multiple colors, you can continue science experiments by mixing different colors together to see what happens. The possibilities for this project are endless. To start though, let’s actually make the stuff.

Water

You’re going to need around 2 cups of this wet stuff. No need to make it anything fancy. The stuff from your tap should be fine.

Flour

I typically use white flour for all of my experiments because it’s cheap and easy to buy in bulk.

Salt

You are going to need a whopping half cup of salt, so buy the cheap stuff!

Cream of Tartar

Cream of Tartar often comes in a small little container a the store. It was weirdly hard for me to find in the spice aisle, but I promise it’s there.

Drink Mix

Personally I use kool-aid mix because I know it sill have a lot of color variety and it will be cheap. I am sure there are tons of drink mixes out there though. Just something that will color your dough beautifully.

Vegetable Oil

Nothing fancy about vegetable oil, and you will only need 3 tablespoons of it.

Process

Step 1: Gather Supplies

Gather your Supplies

2 cups of water
2.5 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1 tablespoon cream of tarter
1-2 packs of colored drink mix
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Step 2: Boil Water

In a medium saucepan, bring your water to a boil. Once it is boiling, remove the pan from heat and set aside.

Step 3: Dry Ingredients

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, cream of tarter, and drink mix. Stir well. Add more packets of drink mix to adjust how dark your colors are. Allow your child to try the ingredients and the mixture as you mix all this together. The best part of edible play dough is that eating it won’t hurt. It might not taste great, but it’s certainly an experience.

Step 4: Vegetable Oil

Stir the vegetable oil into the dry ingredients. Remember that this process is about the experience, not just the result. Make sure to include them in stirring and exploring the ingredients. Talk about what is happening.

Step 5: Water

Add the water to the dry ingredients and stir well. Warning that this could take awhile! Feel free to take turns stirring with your child.

Step 6: Kneed

Once the water has cooled down enough, pull the dough out of the bowl and continue to kneed it until it is smooth and elastic. This can take around 10 minutes.

Step 7: Play!

Once you have play dough let your child go wild! It’s time to smoosh, rip, tear, roll and so much more. You may want to separate a small amount off and set aside the rest for another day. We specifically play on the floor to help remove the association of play dough with food, so that might be a consideration if your child is very young.

Results

At the end of this process we have a generous mound of play dough that is safe to eat. We divide the play dough up, with good handfuls for anyone who is playing. Then there is usually a large chunk left over. That play dough can easily be refrigerated to keep good for awhile so you have edible play dough to use over and over again.

Play dough helps build fine motor skills. Have a blast and play for awhile. You can practice pinching and throwing, making shape and squishing them. Ask plenty of questions too, for science! Questions like “What happens if we have a round ball and pinch pieces of it off? Does it still roll?”